Confusing headline? Maybe, but it will make sense in a minute…
Augusta’s chairman, Billy Payne, who took over in 2006, made a few comments about Tiger Woods and the scandal that has surrounded him for the last several months.
“Finally,” Payne said Wednesday as he wrapped up his opening comment, “we are not unaware of the significance of this week to a very special player, Tiger Woods. A man who in a brief 13 years clearly and emphatically proclaimed and proved his game to be worthy of the likes of Bobby Jones, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer. As (Tiger) ascended in our rankings of the world’s great golfers, he became an example to our kids that success is directly attributable to hard work and effort.
“But as he now says himself, he forgot in the process to remember that with fame and fortune comes responsibility, not invisibility. It is not simply the degree of his conduct that is so egregious here; it is the fact that he disappointed all of us, and more importantly, our kids and our grandkids. Our hero did not live up to the expectations of the role model we saw for our children.”
Nothing to outlandish there, right? Wrong. Jason Whitlock is up in arms because he doesn’t think that anyone associated with Augusta should be lecturing others about their behavior.
He’s chairman of a club with a history of exclusionary membership policies that would embarrass even the angriest Tea Party protesters.
You can’t preach ethics and morality from Payne’s bully pulpit. The stench of hypocrisy makes it sound like bull(spit).
Black and brown folks have kids and grandkids, too. And so do women.
It wasn’t until the Shoal Creek Golf Club/PGA Championship controversy in the early 1990s that Augusta National decided to invite a token black member. Augusta National still doesn’t have a female member, which does not bother me but does trouble some female golf fans.
A couple of things bother me about Whitlock’s argument: 1) Payne took over as chairman in 2006, well after the club started to welcome black members, and 2) Whitlock brings up the “no-women” rule to support his point and then says it “does not bother” him that Augusta doesn’t have any female members.
Payne is not responsible for the exclusionary policies that Augusta held before he took over. He is the chairman, and people are expecting him to make some remarks about Tiger and his recent history. Maybe his words were condescending and/or over the top, but it’s not like Tiger has handled himself with great humility and tact throughout this whole ordeal.
As for the club’s lack of a single female member, Whitlock is essentially saying that it’s not okay to be racist, but it is okay to be sexist, or at the very least, it doesn’t bother him. I wonder how he would feel if a female columnist said that it would be all right with her if a club had a “no blacks” policy as long as women were allowed to join.
Photo from fOTOGLIF
